Various entities may pay voice and data service providers to deliver electronic promotional material to users. Electronic promotional material may include, for example, product advertisements, coupons or discounts, announcements, or opportunities to purchase products or services. Electronic promotional material may be delivered in various formats, for example, as text, images, audio content, or combinations of these formats or other formats. The electronic promotional material may solicit a response from the recipient. For example, an advertisement may provide a link that a user can select to receive additional information, to make a purchase, to place a call, to register on a list, or to commit to some future activity.
Electronic promotional material may be delivered to users in various ways. In some embodiments, an information provider may deliver electronic promotional material to users who submit search queries related to the promotional material. For example, a user who submits a query to Google™ for restaurants serving a specific cuisine in a specific location may receive in response an electronic coupon for a particular restaurant serving that cuisine in that location. In some embodiments, electronic promotional material may be delivered to users of a specific mobile device carrier or a specific mobile device. For example, a company may send promotional material to current subscribers of Verizon's wireless network, or current users of a Moto RAZR™ mobile phone.
Various aspects of the delivery and effectiveness of electronic promotional material may be tracked. For example, an information provider may track how many instances of a particular electronic promotional item are delivered to users (a number of “impressions”). An information provider may additionally track how many responses are received from promotional material that solicit user responses. For example, the information provider may track a number “click-throughs” associated with an ad that provides a user with a redirect link to select in order to receive more information. In some embodiments, this information may be used to bill a sponsor of the electronic promotional material. For example, a sponsor may be billed based on a number of impressions, or a number of click-throughs, or an average click-through rate. In some embodiments, the information may also affect parameters related to future delivery of the electronic promotional material. For example, an information provider may dynamically select between a number of different candidate ads that are responsive to a user search query to identify an ad to deliver. The candidate ads may be selected based on content, or target audience, or in some embodiments, based on past performance of the ad. More particularly, an ad with a high number of impressions but a low click-through rate may not be delivered as frequently as an ad with a similar number of impressions but a higher click-through rate.